


Temporary

by BeveStuscemi



Series: Before There Was Hell [1]
Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Mild Sexual Content, Misogyny, Other, Pre-SH:O, Sexist Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 12:41:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11874675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeveStuscemi/pseuds/BeveStuscemi
Summary: Nobody will remember anything because everything is temporary.Faces will fade, memories will disappear and men and women alike will crumble from memory.A trucker should know this better than anyone.And that's why he takes photographs.





	Temporary

“Again.” Travis passes the glass back to the bartender, who chuckles.  
“Damn, that’s your fourth one! Your girl left you or somethin’?”  
Travis glowers at him. He has no idea how long he’s been in this shithole of a bar, but he intends to stay a while longer. The bar is thick with smoke and the large neon signs decorating the room have long become blurred and illegible through the smog, not that Travis was interested in what they had to say anyway. The bar is densely packed, with old men, bikers and other truckers shouting and laughing over pool or cards or other meaningless pass-times. There had been a brawl about an hour back, with two rival gangs fighting in the parking lot of the bar, which resulted in the bartender grabbing a shotgun with the intention of ending it. The men had entered the bar five minutes after, apparently with resolved differences.  
“Such is life, eh?” The bartender had said, shrugging the incident off. Travis had travelled across the South long enough to understand they did things a little differently.

This wasn’t a bad thing. Travis had drove through state after state and enjoyed noticing little quirks each state had. Everybody in New York, for example, always seemed to be in a constant rush. On the other hand, people in Montana took life at a leisurely pace. It was these little differences that shaped the people living there.  
Travis however, was a nomad.  
He fancied himself as a man of no state, no city or town. He was free to travel the open road, settling down where he needed to and then resuming his travels the next day. That was the beauty of being a trucker, there was no commitments, everything was temporary. Homes, women and places, they were all occurrences that would last him a night until he’d drive to the next city to continue his work. He didn’t have a past or a future. He just had to drive.

He’d been sent down to Mississippi to collect some steel beams and to deliver them to Missouri. He’d made good time, he still had three days to get the beams there and he’d checked in at some motel opposite the bar to get some rest and to nurse his potential hangover the next day. Driving with a hangover was a bitch, after all.  
The bartender passes Travis a full glass of beer and he brings it to his lips. He seldom drinks but the weather is so damn hot and stuffy down south, he needs to drink something other than Coca-Cola to keep himself hydrated. Drinking also stops him thinking about _them.  
_ The jukebox changes to some rock song that Travis doesn’t know and he takes another sip of his beer, closing his eyes. When he opens them, there’s a figure standing next to him.

“Hi.”  
Her voice is soft and playful with a slight slur. Travis looks up from his beer to face the stranger. The side of her face is pink from the neon light above her head and there’s some black makeup slightly smeared under her eyes. She’s pretty, with auburn hair, deep brown eyes and freckles hastily concealed under a layer of garish red blush.  
_She’s a whore._  
“Mind if I have a seat?” She’s smirking now, ruby lips curled and eyes flashing mischievously.  
_Why not?_  
Travis pulls out the barstool next to him and the girl takes the seat, folding her green dress under knees so she can sit comfortably. She places her arm on the wooden bar, propping her head up.  
“My name’s Mandy.” She drawls this out, eyes never leaving Travis.  
_Sure it is._  
“I’m Travis.” He goes back to his beer and her smile falters.  
“Aren’t you gonna buy me a drink?”  
Travis almost laughs at this, at her sheer cheek but keeps quiet. He decides he can play with it, tease her.    
“You gonna give me the money?” He gives her a smirk of his own, the corner of his mouth disappearing into stubble he forgot to shave. She pouts.  
“What sort of gentleman are you?”  
_Not one who spends money on whores._  
He scoffs. “I’m no gentleman, I’ll give you that.”  
She shakes her head, her auburn curls becoming tangled. “No,” She squints and tilts forward, inspecting his cap. “You’re a trucker!”  
_Whores would know their clientele._  
“What gave it away? The hat? Or the fact I’m sitting by myself in a rundown bar on a Thursday night?”  
She ignores the question.  
“Damn, you’re handsome for a trucker. The ones ‘round here are either old or dyin’.” She almost sounds in awe, as though she’s hit the jackpot.  
Travis takes the bait. “You know many truckers?”  
Mandy nods, the same smile playing on her lips. “Not really, I used to see a few down at The Roadrunner few miles that way.” She points north, her arm limp from the alcohol. “They were alright. They said I shoulda been a dancer. A _real_ one.”  
_I’m sure they said all sorts of nice things to you._  
He doesn’t want to question her further on the topic, because he doesn’t care. Another sip of beer, another inspection of this woman. She’s spilled something all down her dress like a child. In fact, she’s like a spoiled child, prodding and probing Travis until he relents and gives her what she wants. He could easily pass her twenty and send her on her way but Travis doesn’t work like that. He wants something as well.  
“Well Mandy, what are you then?”  
She pauses, taken aback by the question. She slowly pieces together an answer. “I’m a dancer…”  
_Bullshit._  
Travis gives a fake smile, feigns interest. “What sort of dancing d’you do?  
Mandy purses her lips as she thinks of an answer and stretches her arms so that her dress hitches up her knee ever so slightly. “It’s kinda…exotic. Like, burlesque but without all the feathers.”  
_I’m a stripper, basically._  
“I don’t think I’ve heard of that kinda dancing.” Travis fishes in his shirt pocket, pulling out forty dollars. He places twenty on the bar but holds the remaining money tight in his fingers. “Why don’t you show me?”

She’s all over him as he walks her over the road to his motel room. Her slim arms are around his neck and she’s kissing the side of his face, telling him how _good_ she’s going to be, how _badly_ he needs her. All words to deaf ears. There’s a Mandy in every city in every state, all begging for someone’s time and someone’s hard earned money and they’re all worth as much as she is. He fumbles with the lock on the motel door, partly due to Mandy’s constant groping and moaning, partly due to beer but he eventually pushes it open and Mandy envelopes him in a kiss he didn’t want. He can feel her tongue pushing into his mouth, feel her slimy lipstick smearing into his stubble but he goes along with it, one hand on the small of her back, one pushing the door closed again. She pulls him by his leather jacket and falls back onto the bed, giving him a wolfish grin as she kicks off her heels and lies back onto the green sheets.  
_She’s making it too easy._  
The leather jacket and cap are quickly discarded and thrown onto the arm chair next to a broken lamp. Travis looks at Mandy in the glare of the fluorescent light and she’s suddenly not so pretty anymore. Her teeth are yellow and somewhat crooked, her makeup plastered on to hide more than just freckles. Sores and spots are hidden under the creamy layer of foundation and her wide blown pupils are haunting.  
_She’s no woman, she’s a succubus. Devil’s whore._

Her hands snake under Travis’ shirt and then she slowly unbuttons it, while he stares past her, past the bedsheets and into nothing.  
“What’s wrong, Travis? Don’t you want to fuck me?”  
Something snaps.  
His hands are around her throat and the sudden hitch of breath from Mandy is more exhilarating than any half-assed orgasm she could give him. She claws frantically at his face, her long nails drawing blood and heightening the pleasure Travis receives. He presses harder, feeling her windpipe slowly crush under his grip and her face purples.  
She kicks desperately under him but he’s on top of her and there’s no way for her to escape now. Travis relishes the fear in her brown eyes, the eyes that stared longingly at him barely fifteen minutes ago and Travis bares teeth in a sick grin and his eyebrows furrow as he presses his full body weight into the grip.  
Her choking quietens and her clawing slows into weak, lazy punches to Travis’ face. He watches as the life fades from her eyes and her arm collapses beside her, still. Her face is wet and slick from tears and saliva that fell from Travis’ mouth and her hair is a tangled mess around her shoulders.  
_She’s never looked better._  
Travis’ hands shake from adrenaline as he stares down at the body in front of him. He’s done this before. He knows what to do.

He strips her naked, placing the green dress, her heels and underwear into a black bag and tossing it to the side. He runs a washcloth underneath the hot tap in the bathroom and then rubs it over her face and body, removing any traces of dirt or filth that may have clung to her. When her hair is brushed and her body sufficiently cleaned, Travis retrieves his Polaroid from his suitcase and stands at the foot of the bed.  
He takes the picture.  
The photo shoots out from the camera and he shakes it mindlessly, too focused on the body in front of him and how fucking _mesmerizing_ it is. Her eyes are still open, pupils unfocused and her mouth is slightly parted. She looks dead and it suits her so well.  
When the picture is developed, Travis looks at it. The shot is dark and part of her body is cast in shadow from the curtain but it doesn’t matter as Travis is hastily scribbling onto the card underneath, still shaking from the experience.

_CAUSE OF DEATH  
ASPHYXIATION_

He places the photo in his suitcase, alongside the rest of his collection before he packs up and leaves. They won’t remember Travis Grady or Willie Wilcox or whatever fake name he gave this time because faces are temporary. The police won’t remember her death because life is temporary. Nobody will remember anything because everything is temporary.

Travis reaches Missouri ten hours later.


End file.
